Used
by Keelin Forsythe
Summary: A dark piece about the Cade pairing. Cat is finding out that everything is worse than she thought...


**A/N: This insisted on coming out in the midst of me trying to write Ch.10 for 'An Effortless Lie', so I'm posting it to tide you over.**

**Angsty little one shot that doesn't end well.**

**Read on.**

I'm tired of being afraid. I'm tired of not knowing what she's going to say or what she's going to do. I'm wound up in my fear and uncertainty like it's a shroud, a great heavy thing that clings about my face, smothering me.

She's looking at me. Staring. Her eyes are like twin daggers, pinning me to the spot; even from across the room, I can feel the power of her gaze. Blue extensions fall playfully through her long brown hair, catching the light of the sun as it spills through the window of the classroom. I feel my heart beat a little faster as her lips curl in a cruel smile, a calculating expression creeping across her face. She's scary when she's like this, like a lioness at hunt. Sharp, predatory eyes latch onto me, marking me; then she stalks, hips swinging, towards me; then she reaches out one powerful paw and grips my arm, claws penetrating to my soul.

She plays it off, drags me out of the room under some false pretense, and finds a secluded corner where she goes in for the kill. It's always the same.

Then there's me. I let her catch me, again and again. I stand there and watch, paralyzed, as she pounces on me like I'm some kind of newborn gazelle. I wonder if it feels good to be devoured. Part of my brain thinks that it would be a logical way to deal with the immense pain of being suffocated.

Jade suffocates me. One look and the air is ripped from my lungs, ravaged out of my chest like a vacuum has suddenly opened up around me. Even now, in the middle of Sikowitz' class, I'm blushing and grinning and trying desperately to bring in oxygen, my head swimming as my body races. She messes me up.

The bell rings and everyone stands up, Tori and Andre talking animatedly to Robbie about Rex. I can't really tell what's going on, but they exit quickly, without so much as a glance back. Beck takes one look at Jade and shakes his head, shouldering his bag and walking out despondently.

She ended it with him just days after first 'catching' me. Plenty of rumors are flying about it, but no one really knows why she broke it off. Beck was devastated... for about a week. Then he started fawning over Tori. I don't think she told him the real reason why she was ending it.

What we have is a secret. We don't talk about it. Ever. It's one of those things, y'know... one of those things that Jade might go homicidal over if she heard it crawling along the school grapevine. I don't know what this is to her. She uses me at her convenience, like a possession; but then she looks at me and there is something _else_ in her eyes, something softer and gentler, more like...

I try not to think about it. This could be so much more if she would let it, but she's wrapped up in this clever disguise, this vamp-y diva that controls the world around her like a game. It's like sexy chess, but scary and degrading and it kinda makes me feel like a pawn instead of a queen.

I tear my gaze away, wrapping nervous fingers around the strap of my backpack and hefting it to my shoulder. I feel a shiver run up my spine as the sound of Jade stalking up to me pounds through my head. I'm frozen, eyes staring sightlessly at the wall as she pounces, long fingers curling around my arm and digging in: those claws cut to the bone. I feel her lean in behind me and her breath is warm against the shell of my ear as she speaks.

"We need to talk."

It's a husky whisper, sliding into me and nesting painfully in my heart. Despite my better judgment, I turn to look at her. Her eyebrows are drawn tight over her nose and she looks troubled; some unknown thought is sliding like oil across her face, marring her fierce beauty.

"Kay kay..." My voice sounds tinny in my own ears, far away and unclear, like some distant radio transmission floating along the airwaves.

"Come over tonight... around nine." Her voice wavers and I watch in silence as she tries to pin her mask back on. She grits her teeth and tries to look haughty, but it comes off merely as discomfort. She looks around the empty room and releases her grip on my arm, then leans in as if to kiss me; she stops, shaking her head and rushing out of the room.

Well what am I supposed to do with this? I let out a shaky sigh and try to collect myself, pasting a happy smile on my face for the walk home.

**(((Self Made Page Break Because I Suck At Formatting)))**

It's moments like this, when I'm standing in the dark on her front porch, shivering slightly as a cold breeze rustles against my skin, that I wonder what I'm doing. What I'm letting her do to me. This has moved far beyond the realm of a game for me, moved into that place where it _means_ something... she makes me fall apart. I look at her now and all I can see is the girl I... I can't even think the word. It's the last thing holding me together, knowing that this is just convenience for her, just something to occupy her time with. I couldn't stand knowing that she treated me like this if she really cared about me. She dangles herself in front of me, that playful smile on her face, as she she touches my hand and stares into my eyes, and captures my very soul just by looking at me. She twists me around her little finger and watches me squirm, like a worm on a hook, watches as I give in because she knows I could never tell her 'no'.

I stand here and debate about knocking at all. Why am I here? What positive thing could come out of this situation? I'm usually a glass-half-full kind of girl, but Jade is a no-glass-at-all kind of situation. I have no idea what any of this really is, and now I'm standing here like a creeper on her front porch, hand poised to knock on the lacquered oak of her front door. I don't know if I can handle putting a label on this. I don't know if I can even keep _doing_ this.

I take a deep breath and knock. There's a pause and I can hear the latch being thrown back. My smile falters as her father opens the door. He scares me too, but in a big-angry-man sort of way. He doesn't approve of anything, so far as I can tell, and he cares even less than that about what goes on with his daughter. Sometimes I wish that he would just go away and leave Jade alone, so then she wouldn't have to tiptoe around and pretend to be someone she wasn't. I'm not too proud to admit that feeling stems from selfish roots.

He scowls lightly and inclines his head towards the stairs.

"She's in her room, enter at your own risk." He strides back into the den, leaving me standing in the threshold. I sigh and enter, quietly shutting the door behind me and throwing the lock. I'll just show myself in, then. He's such a gank.

I knock softly on her door, but there's no reply. I knock a little louder and am met with further silence. My hand drifts to the knob and I take a deep breath.

"I'm coming in, Jade..."

As I open the door, I'm met with the most disturbing sight I've ever seen. Jade is sitting in the middle of her floor, in her underwear and a sweater that's falling off of one shoulder, with her hair up in a loose, messy bun; she's not wearing any make-up and she looks like she'll break if I even breath in her direction. I didn't know she could look this vulnerable.

It scares the chiz out of me. I feel like I've been dunked in a cold pool, the liquid chill slipping over me and dragging me down. She turns and looks up at me and I want to cry. Her unseeing eyes are brimming with tears, her face flat and emotionless as she stares through me. A shuddered breath escapes from her lips and she turns her torpid gaze to the side, her eyelids drooping shut.

I shut the door and shuffle awkwardly in front of her. It doesn't feel right, seeing her like this. This is... this that inner, vulnerable Jade, the one that she builds all of those walls for. This is the princess in the tower.

This is the most uncomfortable experience of my life.

"You... you wanted to talk?" I bite my tongue as soon as the words leave my lips. Too late, per usual. My mouth says a lot of things without checking with me first.

Jade turns her head back and drops it, opening her eyes to stare at the floor.

"This... this has to stop." Her voice is devoid of emotion, flat and lifeless like a recording.

I shudder and a small gasp escapes me. I should have turned around and gone home. I can't deal with this right now. She goes on, as if she didn't hear me.

"We can't keep doing this, it's wrong."

It feels like my world is crashing down around my head, like I'm Chicken Little and the sky is falling. I can practically hear the rending crack of my reality as she looks up at me with those dead eyes, those dull green orbs that used to shine so fiercely.

I can feel the tears trailing down my cheeks, but I don't make a sound. I still haven't caught my breath and I'm starting to get light-headed. I should have expected this. What did I think was going to happen? This was just a fling, just some stupid thing that Jade had to do to make herself feel better about cheating on Beck and dumping him like yesterday's garbage.

Like she was doing now, crumpling me up like an old candy bar wrapper, tossing me in the wastebasket next to everyone else that has tried to hold on to her.

I was always expendable: just like Beck, just like Tori, just like _everyone_. Somewhere in my heart I knew that, and it's what kept me in check. Now I see that it wasn't enough, because deny it I might, but I...

I love Jade.

I love her with all of my heart and it was worth it, it was worth being _used_, just to be close to her, to be able to imagine that it was love and not lust that had her pressing me against the wall, or the locker, or the bathroom stall. But it's not worth it anymore. Nothing could ever be worth having to see my goddess broken and powerless in the disaster that is now her room. It looks like she went on a rampage before her catatonia set in. Cat-atonia. I sigh. Her father's warning suddenly makes sense.

She isn't even wearing any of her facial jewelry. Something about that bothers me worse than anything else that has happened thus far. I notice it blurrily through the tears that are filling my eyes like traitors of my heart, spilling down my face to drip in soft plops to the hardwood floor.

I wipe a hand across my eyes; I raise my hand, scrubbing the tears away so that I can see. She's crying too, each tear slipping down her smooth cheek slowly, almost deliberately. I can feel the hole in my chest where my heart used to be: I feel like I'm going to be sick. This was so much more messed up than I had previously thought.

"Say something," she whispers, and it's a plea. It sounds desperate coming out of Jade West.

My mouth is dry and I don't know if I can force my throat to work well enough to talk. I can feel her eyes on me and all I want to do is crawl into a hole and die. What does she expect me to say?

She laughs mirthlessly, throwing her hands up half-heartedly.

"What do you want me to say?" My voice is cracked and hesitant.

Jade sits silently and wipes her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater. She works her mouth silently and shrugs.

"I don't know."

"This is jank." I stare at her and frown. I can't believe I let her do this to me.

She nods. "Yeah... it is."

I slide down the door and wrap my arms around my legs, leaning my head against my knees. I wish I was anywhere but here, anywhere but sitting across from the girl that shattered my heart: the girl I _let_ shatter my heart.

It's moments like this that I wish I had never let this continue, that I had never encouraged her to break up with Beck, that I had never extended that part of myself to her. I don't know what's going to come out of this and it's making me sick with dread.

I can hear my pulse pounding in my ears and the hole in my chest is getting bigger by the second.

I'm more afraid now than I was when I didn't know what was going to happen.

I love Jade and it scares the hell out of me.

She's never going to love me back.


End file.
